


Roundabout

by tomanonuniverse



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: AO3 why dont you just have a cpr tag do i look like i can fucking spell???, Angry Lambert (The Witcher) (again for like two paragraphs), Anyways, Basilisks, Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Declarations Of Love, Don't copy to another site, Dorks in Love, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Explosions, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Feelings, Getting Together, Hunt Gone Wrong, Idiots in Love, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Missions Gone Wrong, Misunderstandings (for like... two paragraphs or sth lmao), Near Death, Near Death Experiences, Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Soft Lambert (The Witcher)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25232767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomanonuniverse/pseuds/tomanonuniverse
Summary: The color leaves Geralt’s face and his blood turns to ice. Now that they were out of the cave and in a considerably less amount of danger, they could calm down and take a minute to catch their breaths. Only Lambert lay completely still in Geralt’s arms, because he wasn’t breathing at all.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Lambert
Comments: 9
Kudos: 74





	Roundabout

**Author's Note:**

> YALL ARE SLEEPIN ON LAMBERT AND IM NOT FUCKING HAVING ANY OF IT, NO SIR!!!!

_ “Geralt, take cover!” _

_ “What?” _

_ “FIRE IN THE HOLE!” _

**_“Lambert—!”_ **

The last thing the White Wolf manages to see is the younger witcher casting out a burst of Igni at the bomb he threw into the basilisk nest. He’s barely able to shield himself with Quen in the nick of time as the explosive takes its course, flames erupting all around him and nearly swallowing him whole as the entirety of the cave they’re in rumbles and starts to deteriorate.

He hears the basilisks screech at the neverending fire as the walls crumble around them and desperately holds his sign for as long as he could,  _ far  _ past the 30 seconds that would regularly exhaust him. When the last of the debris settles and the cave’s walls cease collapsing on him, he raises the shield and stands upright.

Every single basilisk was dead, or well on its way to death’s door. The ones that weren’t charred to nothing were trapped underneath giant boulders as the dancing flames took care of what remained of their lives. Geralt resisted the urge to cover his nose with his hands (he never did like the overpowering foul scent of dead monsters, much less burnt ones) in favor of examining the smoke.

For a moment, his heart seizes in his chest and his throat tightens, because there’s no sign of the other witcher anywhere. “Lambert?” He calls out anyway, not daring to hope the other was magically safe and would burst out of rubble to mock Geralt for worrying about him so, as he always does when anyone worries for him.

Then there’s a groan somewhere to his left and he’s immediately sprinting to it.  _ “Lambert,”  _ he says again, not even bothering to hide the relief from his voice as he drops to his knees next to the fallen man. The younger witcher is unceremoniously sprawled out on an uncomfortable bed of rocks, none of his limbs pinned thankfully, though he didn’t look as though he’d be moving on his own regardless.

“Did I do it?” Lambert croaks, raising his head with great difficulty and peering at Geralt through barely open eyes. His skin is coated with soot and the other witcher can barely see him through the heavy smoke suffocating them, but the shine of white tells him Lambert is fucking  _ grinning  _ at him through it all. “Did I get them all?”

“You fucking  _ idiot,  _ what was that?” Geralt hisses, hands hovering over the other but not quite touching. He doesn’t know what kind of injuries Lambert sustained, doesn’t know where it’s okay to put his hands or if he should move him at all. “You’re lucky we weren’t blown off the side of the fucking cliff with that stunt you just pulled!”

Predictably, Lambert hisses back. “Didn’t see  _ you  _ making any grand moves. Had a better plan, old man?”

“I’m not an  _ old man,  _ Lambert.”

“Psh, could’ve fooled me.”

And Geralt can’t stop the stupid, overwhelming fondness that claws it’s way through his chest, up his throat, and all the way to his lips. It pulls a smile out of him, one he can’t hope to stop, and he takes solace in the waves of heat and black smoke that hide his stupid face from the stupid witcher on the ground.

The cave rumbles unsteadily, and this time continues to do so. Geralt curses, eyeing the ceiling warily then looking down at Lambert again. “We need to get moving before this place falls down on our heads. Can you stand?” He asks, hands still hesitant to reach for the other. Lambert blinks at him wearily and a pit begins to grow in Geralt’s stomach.

Lambert doesn’t respond for a minute, too busy straining his aching form to get up. He fruitlessly flops back down onto the rocks and groans. “Not… Not really,” he admits meekly, and Geralt feels the dread fully set in. The walls would cave in on them any second and Lambert was completely immobile. 

“I’m gonna have to carry you then,” he warns him, to which Lambert scoffs indignantly at but surprisingly does not object. At least, not until Geralt slips one of his hands underneath his knees and he other behind his back then emits a hefty  _ “hup!”  _ as he stands, now holding Lambert in a bridal-style carry.

The younger witcher  _ squawks  _ at his predicament, to which Geralt very openly laughs at. “Not like  _ this,  _ you son of a bitch!” He squeals, though if Geralt told him that that’s what he sounded like he would get his ass kicked into the decade, provided Lambert recovered from this sooner than that.

It’s that thought that steals the grin from his lips and he swallows silently. At the same time, a boulder drops directly where Lambert had been previously laying and Geralt takes that as his cue to get the hell out of there. Lambert, for the most part, doesn’t struggle in his arms too much, though it’s obvious the jostling was hurting him from his pained gasps.

“Almost there,” Geralt remedies, as though the words would help the other at all. They were deep in the cave, having failed in luring the basilisks out to kill them and being forced to go into their nest instead, and now it was biting them in the ass as more rocks and debris began to fall overhead. 

Just when the exit is within reach, a particularly larger stone falls a little too close and Geralt is forced to leap and combat roll, all while still holding Lambert to his chest perhaps a little too tightly. “Fucking hell, we made it,” he pants, a little disbelieving if he was being honest with himself. He looks down at the other and huffs. “Lambert, we—”

The color leaves Geralt’s face and his blood turns to ice. Now that they were out of the cave and in a considerably less amount of danger, they could calm down and take a minute to catch their breaths. Only Lambert lay completely still in Geralt’s arms, because he wasn’t breathing at all.

“No,” the White Wolf mutters, carefully setting the other witcher on the ground like he was a delicate ornament and cradling his face in his hands. “No, no,  _ no, _ don’t fucking  _ do this to me,  _ Lambert. Don’t do this. Not like this.”

The smoke. How could Geralt have forgotten about the fucking  _ smoke?  _ And he was holding him so close to himself, no doubt the other had trouble breathing throughout the hectic ordeal. He doesn’t spare a second before slamming his mouth down onto Lambert’s, blowing as much air into his lungs as he could before sitting up and putting his palms on Lambert’s chest.

He’s never done this before. He doesn’t even know if it works on witchers. He had learned it a long,  _ long  _ time ago when he was still in training, just in case any witchers encountered injured humans in need of the resuscitation while on their Path, but because he’d never put it into practice he’d long forgotten it. If not for Shani doing it in front of him a few years back as she tried to help a patient of hers, Geralt might not have remembered it at all.

He wants to be angry at the witcher in his hands, he does, but he knows that his bomb was most likely their only chance of slaying the basilisks, or at least getting out alive. There were simply too many of them to fight the good old-fashioned way, even with two witchers for the price of one. If he’d told him about it, perhaps it could have been executed better, but they’d been noticed and all Lambert had was a second to spare, which he used to warn Geralt before blowing up the cave.

_ “Fuck,  _ Lambert,  _ please,”  _ Geralt growls, his motions growing more frantic as he pushes down on the other’s chest again and again. There’s a chance he’s doing this wrong, he recalls Shani chastising an apprentice and scolding them for nearly breaking the patient’s ribs before taking over, but he doesn’t give a shit about that. Any ribs he might break will heal quickly enough, once Lambert starts to fucking breathe again.

By the fourth time Geralt starts doing the same song and dance, unwilling to simply let Lambert go out,  _ not like this,  _ the younger witcher gasps against his mouth. Geralt pulls back and Lambert shoots up like a bolt from a crossbow, coughing and wheezing violently as fresher air enters his lungs.

Now, Geralt can finally breathe as well, watching the color return to Lambert’s skin as he hacks and coughs in his arms. “What—” He tries to say, only to be cut off by his own wheezing and panting. Geralt wordlessly lets him, simply holding his free hand in a vice grip until he regains his wits. “W-What the fuck happened?”

_ Now,  _ Geralt can finally  _ explode. _

“You  _ motherfucker,”  _ he snarls, grabbing Lambert by the lapels of his shirt and pulling him forward so that they’re nose to nose. “What the  _ fuck  _ is  _ wrong  _ with you, Lambert? What kind of bullshit move was that? You weren’t breathing, you could have  _ died,  _ I had to try that bullshit resuscitation crap on you!”

Immediately, Lambert aggressively pushes Geralt away from him and scowls. “What’s your fucking problem?! You obviously weren’t being much help in there so someone had to step up and—” He stops abruptly, blinking at Geralt almost owlishly for a brief second. “Wait. Resuscitation? As in,  _ cardiopulmonary  _ resuscitation? You did fucking  _ CPR,  _ the most  _ human  _ revival technique, on  _ me?” _

“We  _ are  _ human, Lambert,” Geralt stresses weakly.  _ “You  _ are human. You’ve never looked more human to me than you did just a fucking second ago.”

Lambert furrows his brows in fury and opens his mouth wide, most likely to object, then halts in his tracks. He’s looking down at something, then back up at Geralt. Strangely enough, all the fight momentarily leaves him and his shoulders sag, his expression falling from anger to… concern?

It’s only when Lambert takes his hands in his own does Geralt realize that  _ oh.  _ He’s  _ shaking. _

Trembling, actually. Like a wilting leaf enduring a particularly harsh gale amidst the cold of the northern winters. “Geralt…” Lambert breathes,  _ unlike a second ago when he wasn’t,  _ looking at a loss for words for once in his life. His eyes search Geralt’s, looking for something, Geralt doesn’t know what. “Geralt, it’s okay. I’m okay.”

“You  _ weren’t,”  _ the White Wolf insists, voice wavering a little too much. “You  _ weren’t  _ okay, Lambert, you were— you almost—”

“I’m sorry,” Lambert interrupts, shocking Geralt into silence. He slides a hand to Geralt’s jaw, staring into his eyes terribly intimately. “I’m sorry for worrying you that much. I know what I did was reckless but we didn’t have  _ time  _ to think of anything else. If we tried to fight, you would’ve… We  _ both  _ would’ve died in there. I couldn’t let that happen.”

Well. He couldn’t stay angry at him for much longer, not after that heartfelt display. So Geralt exhales shakily, putting his hand over the one Lambert had on his face. He doesn’t know where they got close enough for him to do so but he leans forward just the slightest bit to touch their foreheads together as he recollects himself.

His eyes are closed, only because he doesn’t want to see the mockery that would no doubt overtake Lambert’s gaze any moment now. It was rare that Geralt… got like this, especially in front of the other witchers. This vulnerability was something he was still learning to deal with despite his many mentors on the matter, from Jaskier to Cirilla. He doesn’t think he’s ready to see it but he opens his eyes anyway, knowing that they can’t just sit there forever.

It’s not there though. Lambert is still staring at him gently, like he didn’t want to hurt him, and wasn’t  _ that  _ a thought.

Without another of his own, Geralt surges forward before he could stop himself, pressing his lips to Lambert’s again. He’d thrown in the deepest parts of his mind that he could that he’d kissed Lambert while trying to breathe air into his lungs, knowing full well that he would never actually get the opportunity to do so properly.

It only dawns on him just what it is he’s done when he hears Lambert’s sharp intake of breath. Mortified, Geralt flings himself backwards and away from the younger witcher, a hand flying to his face and covering his mouth like that would take back what he did. As red begins to fill his face, he stammers weakly.

“I… Lambert, I—”

“Are you fucking  _ kidding me?”  _

Geralt  _ flinches,  _ truly and full-bodily, at the harshness of the words as they leave the other witcher. Lambert is visibly  _ fuming  _ at him, not that he blames him. He basically forced himself on him twice, even if one of them was in a feeble but successful attempt to save his life. Or was it? Did he even need to do what he did or was he just taking advantage?

“What the fuck did you do that for, huh?” Lambert demands, now being the one to grab Geralt by the collar. The other doesn’t answer him, only looks on with wide, horrified eyes as Lambert shakes him like a soup can. “Answer me, you fucking prick! What the hell possessed you to fucking  _ kiss  _ me?!”

The White Wolf squeezes his eyes shut, wishing he were  _ anywhere  _ but here. “I’m sorry,” he manages to say, voice barely above a whisper. “I’m  _ sorry,  _ Lambert. I have feelings for you.  _ Romantic  _ feelings. I have for…  _ a while. _ I thought it was just a crush. I thought that after  _ everything  _ they would go away, but they  _ didn’t  _ and I’m sor—”

Lambert silences him again, this time by slamming their lips together, this time of his own goddamned volition. Geralt emits a small noise of alarm but the other witcher doesn’t allow it, swallowing it whole as he pushes them onto the ground and climbs over Geralt like he’s been  _ waiting  _ to do so for some time.

Geralt barely manages to pull away with a gasp. “L-Lam—”

“Shut up,” Lambert growls, dragging his lips over Geralt’s again and resisting the urge to shove his tongue down the White Wolf’s throat unprompted. “I always thought that if I never gave you my heart, you wouldn’t break it like you broke everyone else’s. But I think I just realized you had it all along anyway, you complete and utter cock.”

Hands settle on his shoulders and Geralt finally finds the strength to push the younger witcher backwards, just enough to look him in the eyes. “I don’t… I don’t  _ break people’s hearts  _ on  _ purpose,  _ Lambert,” he says, sounding almost offended that the other thought of him that way. “It… isn’t my fault that I didn’t return Triss and Jaskier’s feelings. And I really did love Yennefer, but I couldn’t be with her. Not… Not while someone else was on my mind.”

Lambert’s grip tightens and he barks out a laugh. “I didn’t mean them with what I said. I meant the rest,” he tells Geralt, who only furrows his brows in confusion. Lambert huffs. “Of course you’re fucking clueless. Do you have any idea how many of the boys in my training days had the  _ biggest  _ fucking crushes on you? Myself included, shithead.”

Geralt’s face is  _ radiating  _ heat as he lies there underneath Lambert, face burning bright red.

“Um?”

“And you see, I knew you didn’t really feel that way towards any of them, or me. Hell, I didn’t know you courted men until you told me that you used to fool around with your own classmates back when. So I told myself, hey, you know what? All I have to do to protect myself from you is to simply  _ not  _ fall for you like everyone else had. Spoiler alert, it didn’t fucking work. So then—”

_ “Lambert,”  _ Geralt interrupts him suddenly, looking up at him with that same stupid fucking smile he didn’t think he’d seen back in the cave. “Is this just your really,  _ really  _ roundabout way of telling me that you like me back?”

At that, Lambert gives an affronted scoff.  _ “Like _ you?” He parrots incredulously. “I fucking  _ love  _ you, Geralt.”

The older witcher freezes underneath him, jaw dropping slightly at just how easily the admission came. Lambert finally falters since this conversation began, shrinking away underneath the shocked gaze. “You don’t have to say it back, or anything, I just. Wanted you to know how I really felt. Or something.”

He grimaces at how lame he sounds, but blinks when Geralt sets his hands on his hips and pushes him back just enough to be able to sit up. “I love you, too,” he confesses, pupils blown wide as he connects their lips once more. Lambert exhales in relief as he wraps his arms around Geralt’s shoulders, swiping at the other’s bottom lip as a request for entrance.

Geralt obliges and Lambert _smiles,_ cradling the back of Geralt’s head and pulling him closer, as deep into the kiss as he could. Geralt hums, the sound low and possessive, and it makes Lambert shudder so much the other witcher takes the upper hand. In an instant, they’re spun around, Geralt now being the one above Lambert.

As his hands snake under Lambert’s shirt, however, the witcher hisses and pulls away from the kiss abruptly. All too suddenly does Geralt remember what they just went through and he has the decency to look embarrassed at his wandering hands. “Shit, sorry. Are you okay?” He asks frettingly, looking the other over with a worried gaze. “Did I hurt you?”

“I’m not a dainty little flower, Geralt,” he grumbles, mildly irritated at being interrupted by his own bruises. He should have known better, what with the smug look on the other’s face as he hauls Lambert onto his lap instead, pressing gentler kisses onto his cheeks, jawline, neck, and occasionally the tips of his ears. Every part of him he could reach, really.

The White Wolf hums again. “No, you’re not,” he murmurs, the mischievous glint in his eye as visible as the sky overhead. “You’re a dainty little  _ lamb.” _

“You know what? Nevermind. I don’t love you. Get the fuck off me.”

Geralt just laughs and holds him tighter.


End file.
